AUSTIN — Three years ago this week, Texas had possession of the football and a chance to win in the final minutes of the BCS title game. At that same moment, the Longhorns were 14-0 in men's basketball and ranked No. 2 in the country.

With a program like that? A 24-hour UT cable network seemed like it couldn't miss.

Then an Alabama linebacker named Eryk Anders crashed into Garrett Gilbert from behind, dislodging not only the ball but also an aura of superiority.

It might have been a mere coincidence that, within the next two weeks, Rick Barnes' basketball team would begin to crumble by losing 10 of 17 games. It might have been a mere coincidence that Barnes' most discouraging three-year stretch at UT came during the same time as Mack Brown's.

But when Barnes was asked this week to reflect on the past three years and on where his program stands, his response sounded awfully familiar.

“Where we are right now is unacceptable,” Barnes said.

That description is nearly a word-for-word facsimile of what Brown said about his football team in October. Much like Brown, Barnes is fighting the perception that he might never bring his program back to its heights of the previous decade.

Heading into tonight's game against West Virginia at the Erwin Center, Barnes' Longhorns are 8-6 and in danger of missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1998, the season before he arrived.

The decline has not been sudden. Instead, it's happened gradually ever since the week after that BCS title game three years ago, when Barnes' team jumped to No. 1 in the Associated Press rankings for the first time in program history.

What followed for the basketball program wasn't an embarrassment quite like the football team's 5-7 meltdown in 2010, but it was noticeable nonetheless.

The program that went to five Sweet 16s, three Elite Eights and a Final Four from 2002-08 has become little more than a March afterthought. UT hasn't been to the Sweet 16 in five years and has managed just a single NCAA tournament victory in the past three.

Barnes said he's not happy about it.

“I told our guys, 'The last couple of years are not where we're supposed to be,'” Barnes said.

To be fair, he hasn't had the greatest of luck lately. Repeated early departures by star players have left him with the nation's most inexperienced team in terms of career minutes played. His best recent shot at a long postseason run was derailed by a terrible five-second call two years ago. And now he's been forced to navigate two-thirds of this season without point guard Myck Kabongo, who's serving a 23-game NCAA suspension.

But like Brown, Barnes is hesitant to call what his program has gone through “rebuilding.” He said the infrastructure remains strong enough for UT to be a national power again. And even though he acknowledges the best teams have a T.J. Ford/LaMarcus Aldridge/Kevin Durant superstar his current squad lacks, Barnes said he still believes his current team is close to being good again.

“But the attitude can't be (that) close is good enough,” Barnes said.

Three years after two UT programs learned that lesson all too well, “close” still seems achingly far away.